Honolulu, 2019Oahu, Hawaiʻi, USA

Cusco, 2019Moray, Cusco, Peru

TITLE:Nanotourist Strategies for Cusco, 2019

LOCATION: Moray, Cusco, Peru

WHEN: August, 2019

Preserved in SaltLi‘u i ka Pa‘akai

AA Visiting School nanotourism, Honolulu, Hawai'i, USA 2018

The Preserved in Salt project is exploring and redeveloping the potential of salt production in Kaka‘ako to bring awareness to this valued resource that was once prevalent in the area. Li‘u i ka pa‘akai literally means well-seasoned and preserved in salt which speaks of how ancestral knowledge is preservered in everything we see and do and sometimes we just need to brush off the salt to tap into our ability to understand the past and co-create knew knowledge for the future. The Preserved in Salt project proposes to co-create new methods of salt production in Kaka’ako as a way to create meaningful connections, experiences, and investments to people, place, and culture. This process provides opportunities to build upon ancestral knowledge and increase community connections and capacity.

Shade on YouSheding Light on a Larger Issue

Shade on You Sheding Light on a Larger Issue AA Visiting School nanotourism, Honolulu, Hawai'i, USA 2018 The Shade on You project studies how a group of individuals can collectively influence a larger issue. The project began as an exploration of the negative effects of sunscreen, and the collective destruction of coral reefs that both tourists and locals play a role in. Coral could soon be a thing of the past and landscapes have already been altered/ commoditized for the use of mass tourism promising limitless enjoyment. Street advertising was banned to create unobstructed views of Hawaii’s most precious sights yet skyscrapers, cranes, mass tourism, cruise ships exist to supplement tourism. Vendors in Waikiki have found a loophole by hiring sign wavers to advertise to tourists walking along Kalakaua Avenue. How can we use the advertising ban to our advantage to fuse the idea of the collective and the need to protect ourselves from the sun to create a collective experience for people at the beach?

Intimate StrangersPromoting Aloha Behaviours

AA Visiting School nanotourism, Honolulu, Hawai'i, USA 2018

''Intimate Strangers'' a platform to promote social change in the spirit of Aloha - “Ha meaning the breath of life and spiritual mana. It draws upon the positive gestures between strangers that is exhibited in everyday local behaviours. It brings awareness, provokes, and encourages, us to pass this behaviour on.

Breath of Kaka'akoRevealing the Wind

AA Visiting School nanotourism, Honolulu, Hawai'i, USA 2018

Kaka‘ako is ever changing, but it was a place that offered much for O‘ahu. Because of this, it is important to remind future generations of how this land naturally worked, which in other parts of Hawai‘i has been respected and preserved. Like the importance of ecosystems, flow of currents, and patterns of rains; the invisible flow of air was carefully documented and understood to sustain an isolated population. As the green ridges and valleys are becoming blocked with high-rises, the salt barring lands converted to parking lots, and as Sig Zane mentioned our view of the world is becoming screened by pixels, this knowledge of how nature plays is being lost. As people change their surroundings, they in result change themselves. In consequence, the way of life here is being lost. How we can remember the winds of the past for the winds of the present in an educational and quantitative way is our mission for this project

Ault, 2017Picardie, France

Je Te Porte, Tu Me PortesAult And The Cliffs

AA Visiting School nanotourism, Ault, May 2017

Ault inhabitants live with the cliffs as a single entity, as symbiotic organisms depending on one another. The historical development of the society goes hand in hand with the geological evolution of the cliffs. As human beings we cannot stop natural processes such as the erosion of this seaside town and the social phenomena caused by it. As architects we act as mediators between the natural and artificial environment, therefore our role is to be sensitive to the personal attachment that a community has to both. Working with the collective memory and the unavoidable oblivion we are all exposed to, “Our Cliffs”, is the result of listening to the echoes of the local community while providing the experience of a physical identification with its surroundings. “Pourriez-vous me parler d’Ault et de Les Falaises?” (Could you talk to me about Ault and The Cliff?):

Through conversations, personal experiences about the place are extracted. Each person is invited to come to Onival beach in front of the cliff and testimony his/her own words, a photograph is taken as they pose carrying the mirror with the cliff reflected, as if they are holding a piece of it. The cliff carries Ault, the habitants carry the cliff. From each picture, a postcard is created. The postcard collection is the conclusion of the project but also the beginning of a long-term communication channel between inhabitants and visitors alike.

Chaises PubliquesTidal Conversations

AA Visiting School nanotourism, Ault, July 2017

Where is the public space in Ault? Can this be established on a site-specific coast of dynamic tidal changes?

Can this be established on a site-specific coast of dynamic tidal changes? Analysing the current use of the coast we determined that it already represents a main public area of the city. Based on our investigations, our goal was to see if it is possible to replicate sociological effects of urban environment in these specific circumstances. For the experiment, the methodology to achieve desired effects was to displace a chair from its usual context into an ephemeral environment. In order to observe the interactions and behavioural influence of the chair, they were recorded using stationary cameras. Other aspect of observing the behaviour consisted out of conducting discussions with users, to understand the potential conversation catalysts of a chair.

The red stain into the waves, and the continuous and permanent morphing condition, allow us to imagine several scenarios since the most idilic like the quiet fine conversation, until the most polemical like: A chair is still a chair once submerged?

Present PresentThe Aultian Body

AA Visiting School nanotourism, Ault, May 2017

Talking about things I don’t truly understand, but they nevertheless seem true... Present. Thinking, maybe the only place I am really present. Am I present through the things I have? How present is my presence? Understanding the place. What does that even mean? Is reality a blurred mixture of subjective and objective? Between facts and fiction? Between logical and improbable?

- What do you mean exactly? - I mean, but exactly.

Look within! Within what? And why? I don’t understand! What is presence? When are you? I am! I just am! Where? Here? Here? Here? Is there one Here? Argh! I don’t know!

Down The SeaBathing Rituals

AA Visiting School nanotourism, Ault, May 2017

The city, the beach, the sea. Three moving elements. One thing remains: the change. After exploring the sea, trying to fight against this element, the Aultian people found a solution: to adapt. After France introduced the paid holidays in 1936, Ault became a famous seaside resort. The Picardie village became well-known for sea treatments, bathing, and leisure. But its beautiful cliffs are eroding, letting tonnes of chalk and pebbles fall, shaping the beach daily. This public space is a theatre of habits, helped by the development of devices. Nowadays tourist groups or activities are taking place in the free area where nature meets culture. Both spaces are overlapping each other, blurring the boundaries between the urban life and the seascape. In the middle of this scenario, the Aultian women undergoes a process of transformation. Like a ritual, she undresses herself, layer by layer, progressively removing her civil habits, hanging her ego, entering the wild. As a picture of society, leading by social rules and law, this ephemeral catwalk is the ultimate nano-touristic dissection.

Vitanje Trilogy

The AA Visiting School nanotourism (formelry AA Visiting School Slovenia) started its application of nanotourist strategies in the tiny town of Vitanje in the north-eastern part of Slovenia.

The first programme was organised in 2014. After its initial success, the AAVS nanotourism programme continued to research and develop nanotourist strategies for the town of Vitanje with subsequent programmes in 2015 and 2016.

Gravity: A User's ManualKSEVT Wine Tasting Experience

AA Visiting School nanotourism, Vitanje, July 2016

In collaboration with Zlati Grič, the renowned regional winery, we have looked at KSEVT as a an opportunity for a site-specific, experimental wine tasting adventure. Following the research on the culture of wine tasting and aspects of drinking on earth and in outer space, we have looked closely into the physical as well as programmatic properties of KSEVT with the aim of determining the space that can add KSEVT-specific value to wine tasting experience. Ultimately, we opted for the endless, sloped exhibition space which challenges visitor’s subconscious relationship with the gravity by adding dynamics to the body movement through space. The project manifests itself as a reinterpretation of the traditional wine glass, in an event-specific wearable suit, which, through a systematically attached system of tubes, challenges you to use your body movement as a way of drinking your “glass” of wine. As a result, the wine tasting experience at KSEVT becomes a body performance choreographed by the path of the tube transferring a sip of wine from the injection bag to your mouth.

Food Odyssey KSEVT Dining Experience

AA Visiting School nanotourism, Vitanje, July 2016

The project proposes KSEVT as a functioning venue for a site-specific dining experience. As an extension of the exhibition of space technologies, or as a stand-alone event, eating becomes a rather different encounter with food as we know it. In collaboration with the KSEVT management and the local Restaurant Gastuž, we have carefully analysed the sensorial and spatial qualities of the building in relation to its programme. As a result a set of eating scenarios has been developed, where the traditional notion of dining has been subverted by the KSEVT’s architectural and programmatic implications and where the topic of gravity and outer space human experience play a pivotal role in how the food is served and how you consume it. Simultaneously, this rigorous research and experimentation has also stimulated our collaborating team of chefs to re-interpret their local cuisine to create site-specific dishes, made exclusively for gastronomic events in KSEVT.

NoordungCritical Distance, DIY

AA Visiting School nanotourism, Vitanje, July 2016

KSEVT, Cultural Centre of European Space Technologies, was built on one singularity, Potočnik’s book from 1929, “The Problem of Space Travel”, and a series of loose facts. The project looked at the whole story of Herman Potočnik Noordung and the correlated history to ultimately have a different view in the form of our own, more entertaining, version of the legend. Parallel to the creation process of the Potočnik’s new story we held the topic of “re-questioning” upright by doing various guerrilla actions, like our own alternative guided tours of the KSEVT exhibition. The project illustrates itself physically as a critical manifesto of mass tourism: a pilgrimage which dissolves KSEVT’s compressed history of Potočnik, and guides the visitor throughout various sites in Vitanje. At this point all local businesses that do not benefit from their own direct proximity to KSEVT can revive. The final destination of the pilgrimage is the existing bench at the popular viewing point on hill slope above Vitanje, where he finds an installation, a shiny object abstractly placed in the landscape that holds the caption to the view towards Vitanje with KSEVT and reads “BUY YOUR OWN CRITICAL DISTANCE AT THE BOOKSHOP OF KSEVT”. After some critical reflection and upon return, visitor can buy at KSEVT an artifact of memorabilia, a 30 cm long bras bar with engraved inscription “critical distance = 300 m” and “scale 1:1000”.

Community TidesTuning Local Waterpark

AA Visiting School nanotourism, Vitanje, July 2016

We started our project at the AA Visiting School Slovenia in Vitanje with a focus on the research of the local river system, which brought us to an interesting place - a dam with an urban environment around it created by the local youth. This social situation interested us, so we decided to collaborate with them and develop our project on that specific site, corresponding to the user’s needs and ambitions. Once the dam was built, changes in the dynamic of the water levels allowed for the creation of different sets of activities. There is no direct access to the other side of the river bank, currently used as a slightly hidden social space by the local youth – a bunker and fireplace. Proceeding on this idea of an ‘’adrenaline park’’, it became clear to us that we don’t want to create just a bridge that would create both banks but rather create a structure with a manifold of uses, which could successfully complement the already existing activities on site. Looking critically at the use of materials in relation to the site, we decided to use local climbing ropes for the construction of the bridge as they provide the needed stability yet also cater for the flexible use of the structure under different conditions by the specific local user group

KSEVT UndergroundHacking Architectural Hardware

AA Visiting School nanotourism, Vitanje, July 2016

The aim was to propose and partially build a set of pavilions next to the playground of KSEVT. Some of the planned programmes were toilets and changing rooms for the athletes and bar, storage and tribunes for everyone. In the beginning, it wasn’t clear why the athletes didn’t want to use the already existing facilities inside KSEVT, so we talked to the president of the local football association and he told us that he and his team do not want to be responsible for all the other players which are using KSEVT. After doing some research, we discovered a ventilation tunner, which ends next to the playground. Because of that, we proposed a new staircase, which will lead through the shaft, directly to the basement of KSEVT, where all bathrooms and changing rooms are located. On top of the ventilation shaft, we built tribunes which also serve as an entrance pavilion.

Don't PanicVitanje Space Call

AA Visiting School nanotourism, Vitanje, July 2015

The DON'T PANIC project is exploring and developing the potential of Vitanje to emphasize and build up on identity that this small town has gained with the Cultural Centre of European Space Technologies (KSEVT). The ephemeral land art installation, created in collaboration between AA Visiting School participants and local community through an engineered social event is bringing both societies, of KSEVT and of Vitanje, together in an unique context of local knowledge, architecture, art and science. Starting from the fact that Vitanje’s Google Maps imagery database has not been updated since the building of KSEVT has been erected, the project takes the opportunity to send the message to the outer space (and the rest of the world) with a single snapshot of the Vitanje area from the sky. The cultural (scientific and fictional) relation between Herman Potočnik Noordung, Arthur C. Clarck and Douglas Adams is making the Don't Panic message perfect match for Vitanje and KSEVT.

KSEVT PlaygroundLost in Space

AA Visiting School nanotourism, Vitanje, July 2015

Can KSEVT be a playground? We are triggering unconventional ways of body movement and individual experience of each visitor of KSEVT by a specific spatial intervention. Referring to an old children game, we have designed a spatial intervention which will induce visitor’s various body movements in space that will provide a dynamic bodily experience. We have used participatory action research to create interactive experience to understand diverse experience of individual transition through given space. We have created two objects for twofold experience: the outdoor object works as a permanent 3D playground in a form of a cube intertwined by climbing ropes, whereas the indoor object is upgrading KSEVT’s central space, shifting the perception end physical experience of unique round indoor space of KSEVT.

Expanding KSEVTThe Outer Space Experience

AA Visiting School nanotourism, Vitanje, July 2015

The project wants to expand the experience of the existing exhibition in KSEVT and wants to offer to the visitor the experience of the outer space which will connect the local with the planetary. In the surrounding hillsides of Vitanje there will be deployed objects from which the visitor can observe the specificities of Vitanje in relation with KSEVT and planetary phenomena. Hillsides are crowded by trembling »stars«. The experience point is alineating the visitors from everything known to him and allows him to experience multiple sunsets. Astronauts in outer space are experiencing 16 sunsets in one day. The visitor will be guided from KSEVT to individual experience point by a local person.

Space AppropriationOuter Space In Public Space

AA Visiting School nanotourism, Vitanje, July 2015

We have looked at the contents of the institution of KSEVT and it’s programme of culturalisation of space through the participation of local inhabitants at building up structures through which they represent their own understanding and participation to the “yet unseen”. With the ambition of expansion of the public programme surrounding KSEVT, we have invaded already existing structures, with which we stimulate new rituals of use and understanding of everyday structures in relation to the planetary experience. In this way we stimulate collective awareness of the new bond of Vitanje community with the existing programme of KSEVT.

KSEVT HotelFrom 2D to 3D Sleeping

AA Visiting School nanotourism, Vitanje, July 2014

How can KSEVT accommodate sleep-overs? Site-specific added value to the KSEVT exhibition is the experience of levitation in an environment of gravity. Team’s field of research was the transition from conventional 2D sleeping to the experience of 3D sleeping. KSEVT hotel offers two experiences. Individual, where the researcher can spend the night in KSEVT by sleeping in a uniquely engineered levitation-suit, suspended in the central space of KSEVT. Or collective, where a group of people can experience 3D sleeping as an extended feature of the exhibition, where a set of pyramid shaped cushions support your entire body in a custom 3D position while asleep. The concept of KSEVT hotel and 3D sleeping embodies the unique program of KSEVT - it fulfils the accommodation needs of the institution and furthermore upgrades already unique visitor experience.

Hang Out VitanjeCommunal XL Lace Hammock

AA Visiting School nanotourism, Vitanje, July 2014

KSEVT has changed the status quo of Vitanje, but its visitors come to see the exhibition and leave right after. HangOut Vitanje responded to this issue by researching and devising alternative accommodation strategies and activities, giving KSEVT visitors or local residents a reason to explore the area for a longer period of time – from some hours to several days. HangOut Vitanje proposes an intrinsic experience of renting out a bag kit with a site-specific, XL lace hammock and a map with a set of site proposals to explore. New discoveries can be noted and uploaded to the project website, where personal spots of interest can be shared. Custom lace hammocks are produced by reworked traditional bobbing technique to fit specific sites and conditions. They offer a possibility of accommodation and space for activities, while all infrastructures, including the renting service, are available at KSEVT. They represent an alternative to a conventional vision of a hotel or camping.

KSEVT Outdoor CommunitySocial Design for Vitanje

AA Visiting School nanotourism, Vitanje, July 2014

The building of KSEVT was planned to contain both: planetary programmes and local community cultural centre. KSEVT Outdoor Community wanted KSEVT to play a bigger role in the lives of Vitanje inhabitants. Analysing their needs and issues, a set of site specific socially engineered interventions were formulated in order to integrate people of Vitanje with KSEVT and its assets. The team has organised all-day public event KSEVT-FEST, hosting football tournament with made-on-spot goulash, large scale chess board games and open air cinema evenings: kinoKSEVT. Active participation of mostly younger population at these events has clearly showed a critical need for outdoor social programmes related to KSEVT. To sustain such activities, the team has equipped active participants with DIY manuals and has built a series of simple, locally sourced wooden seats that foster a physical evidence and collaborative relationship between KSEVT and the local community.

Vitanje Expo @KSEVTCommunity Exposition System

AA Visiting School nanotourism, Vitanje, July 2014

The team addressed objects of activation - in a form of structures, spaces or events - that connect people of Vitanje and users of KSEVT on a social and emotional level. The connection was activated by joint participatory exhibition of products by local craftsmen and of photographs taken by residents, based on the initiative of the team: local participants were asked to photograph the representations of KSEVT or Space in their own home environments. The exhibition took place in the multi-purpose foyer of KSEVT and coincided with the final jury and exhibition opening of the AA Visiting School. Vitanje expo @KSEVT has questioned the institution of KSEVT, to open up to the needs of the local community. Materialising the exhibition setup the team was using semi reflecting foil to convert generic foyer lightning into spot-lights and rented local wooden slats, half-products of local saw mills, for flexible, systematically organised and integrated exhibition system.

nanotourism

AA Visiting School nanotourism is an experimental teaching, research and development programme as a part of AA Visiting School at the Architectural Association, School of Architecture in London.

AAVSnt’s first programme was organised in July 2014 in Vitanje, Slovenia. The programme has since developed projects with students and professionals worldwide, who wish to further their knowledge, practice and skills in architecture within short and intensive courses that engage with a particular local environment and its relevant architectural and social issues. Nanotourism is a central topic of research and development.

Programme Head: Aljoša DeklevaProgramme Assistant: Jakob Travnik

Contact: nanotourism@aaschool.ac.uk

Thank You

One of the principal missions of AA Visiting School nanotourism is to leave a lasting and positive mark in the specific locations within which we work in. As a result, we have developed close relations with many individuals, organisations and companies that believed in our mission in making the world a better place.

We would like to sincerely thank all our past, present and future collaborators for their continuous support both financially and materially all in the effort of making our endeavours possible!